The BBC’s Horrible Histories has had some wonderful musical parodies in the past (the theory of evolution set to Bowie’s Changes springs to mind) but this one is something else. A chronological account of the life of Charles Dickens set to the music of The Smiths. It is spot on too. The level of detail is superb, the Morrissey style …

So the BBC is finally pulling the plug on showing kids programmes on mainstream channels like BBC 1 and if you want to entertain your youngsters you’ll now have to plonk them in front of CBBC or any one of about a hundred US channels. In the general scheme of things this matters very little. It does however give me a cheesy hook to highlight five great kids programmes that quite frankly …